My physics teacher put this question on a recent test and I got it wrong. When i asked him to explain it to me he didn't do a very good job and I am still confused.

Question: Can the displacement vector for an object moving in two dimensions ever be longer than the length of the path traveled by the object over the same time interval? Can it ever be less? Discuss.

I wrote that it could not be longer but can be less and I received no marks.